5 Important SEO Tips and Tricks (2018)

SEO is a pretty fast-paced game. No wonder small-business owners are intimidated.

After investing a bunch of time in learning the basics, all too often the rug gets pulled out from underneath your feet. The tactics you’d just started looking into may be ineffective a few weeks or months later thanks to Google’s constant rollout of algorithm updates.

For example, building multiple boilerplate-style pages for specific keyword variants used to be incredibly effective. There was also the rampant use of partial and exact match domains. The list goes on.

But OK Ok. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. If you’re here looking for SEO tips and tricks, you probably haven’t been on the razor’s edge of SEO. That’s a good thing. You can learn from our experience and over 10 years of data collection!

Now that 2018 is well underway, it’s time to review your SEO strategy and take a look at what works, and what doesn’t. Here are some essential SEO tips and tricks for 2018!

Find the Right Keywords

One tactic that hasn’t changed much over the years, is keyword research.

It’s an important prerequisite for success in link building, on-page SEO, and content marketing.

Remember, keywords determine the niche relevance and visibility of your site in specific search terms. Honestly, if you’re doing any SEO activity and don’t have some target keywords in mind, you’re wasting time.

Knowing how to pick the best keywords does take a bit of effort. But it’s not rocket science. We’ll cover the basics below. If you want a complete guide, we’ve got one for you here.

As always, the Google AdWords Keyword Planner is an excellent (and completely free) tool for keyword research. You only need a valid Google account to get started right away.

A word of advice: be sure to find the balance between keyword competitiveness and demand.

Like I said before, this isn’t rocket science. Most of the time, high demand keywords will be harder to rank for. So unless you’ve got a big appetite (and deep pockets), avoid the most competitive phrases.

Instead, be on the lookout for medium volume keywords that have a low competitive index.

While you’re at it, make sure you consider searcher intent. Although broad keywords may receive tons of monthly searches, that doesn’t necessarily mean that searchers are looking to buy a product or service.

Sometimes, broad terms are used by searchers just to show images, or to find wikipedia listings.

In 2018, it’s important to look at your link acquisition efforts as link-earning as opposed to link-building. There’s not necessarily any difference other than the sentiment implied.

In years gone by, link-building got pretty cynical. It involved scrapers, quality over quantity, and sometimes even paid links.

These days, those tactics are at best ineffective. At worst, they’ll get you slapped down with a Google penalty. So don’t listen to the hucksters selling cheap links!

Keep in mind that engines utilize your backlink profile to determine authority, relevance, and overall rank worthiness. Backlinks from other popular sources also signal trust, which is another deciding factor in SEO. That’s why link building will inevitably become your bread and butter for the long-term.

To cut to the chase, here are a few quick tips that will help boost your website’s backlink profile.

Reclaim Lost Links – If you updated a page’s URL or removed it altogether, then you could have a few broken or lost links. Tools like Monitor BacklinksandAhrefs can help you detect and recover them by contacting the link’s source.

Contribute content to relevant outlets – Now, don’t go at this willy-nilly. Guest posting like you might have tried in 2014 is largely a waste of time. But partnering and working with editors at relevant outlets is still a great way to build brand exposure and earn some links.

Offer business partners special discounts – Passing along a special offer to a business partner can be a great way to earn a link and get some referrals. You can even provide kickbacks if it’s appropriate!

Develop Skyscraper Content – When executed properly, the Skyscraper Technique could be your ticket to more authoritative backlinks. In a nutshell, you need to find popular content, rewrite something more valuable, and then share it with influencers.

Track Your Data

Noticing a pattern? I’m dubbing 2018 the year of common sense.

All of the spammy tactics of years gone by? Forget about them. Move on.

All of the common sense advice you’ve been given since day one? Pay attention and put it to work.

It should come as no surprise that without tracking the right data, you’re not going to be able to learn much about your SEO efforts. After all, how would you even know if one approach worked, if you didn’t know what improvements to look for in the analytics?

Adaptability is perhaps the most important trait for SEO success. After all, you can’t design an optimal, self-sustaining SEO strategy overnight. If you want to grow and rank highly in search engines, you need to learn how to measure results.

Tracking your backlink profile is a step in the right direction, but it’s barely enough. You should also monitor other key performance indicators, such as web traffic, click-through rate, and search rankings. Only then will you be able to make data-driven decisions moving forward.

Apart from backlink checkers, some of the SEO tools that can help you with analytics are:

Google Search Console – This is your one stop shop for all things SEO data. Be sure to set this up as early as you get around to Google Analytics.

Conclusion

SEO tips and tricks are a dime a dozen. You’ve probably seen (and turned away from) articles that include 100+ tips for higher rankings.

2018 however, is not going to be a year where shortcuts are effective. Rather, we want to play the long game.

The tips and tricks laid out above, are going to take time and energy to implement. But they’re also tactics that are here to stay.

Remember, search engine optimization and improving user experience have a lot in common these days.

Keyword research, for example, makes sure users who need your content can find it. The same goes for link building, which should always be done with contextual relevance in mind.

At the end of the day, search engines are getting better and better at providing great user experiences for the searcher. In order for us to succeed in convincing algorithms that we’re worth ranking in the top slots, we need to align our objectives with helping searchers.